


The Rick Files: Rick and Harley

by Rickdicted



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Original Characters - Freeform, The Lazy Motherfuckers, The Motherfuckers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-08-22 06:13:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16592366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rickdicted/pseuds/Rickdicted
Summary: This is a story which tells of the Rick and Harley, from “Rick’s Texas Chick,” and their origins, their backstory.  It takes place before Rick meets the Texas Chick.  In both of these stories, Rick is from dimension D-319, and “Harley” Rick is from dimension 319-D.  You don’t have to read one story before reading the other.I also want to say that in my head canon, Rick is 60 by the time we see him in “Rick and Morty “——which, honestly, is how old I thought he was, until Toxic Rick said he was 70, in a Season 3.  Rick and Harley meet when they’re in their late 20s, early 30s.  I’m not sure, yet.  I’m still coordinating this story and their lives, with that of Rick’s Texas Chick.





	1. Chapter 1

Things had been bad for awhile, but everything really started to go downhill when he developed teleportation.  Diane had already been complaining that he was spending too much time in the garage, working on his ‘stupid sci-fi shit’, as she called it.  This had become a major cause for arguments in their marriage.  She didn’t understand — she never had.

It was a compulsion, working on these projects.  He couldn’t fight the urge to design, build, create.  The ideas formed in his head at all times of the day and night.  If he woke up with an idea in the middle of the night, he’d fling back the covers and get up, throw on his clothes and lab coat and immediately go down to the garage to work on it, while it was still fresh in his mind.  He didn’t know if he woke her up or not, didn’t really seem to care.  

If he was driving the car he’d immediately pull over and demand that Diane give him a pen and something to write on—he didn’t care if it was the receipt from the grocery store they’d just left.  He’d scribble out formulas, chemical equations, draw weird designs that she didn’t recognize.  All the while muttering to himself while Diane sat next to him in stony silence and Beth fussed and cried from her carseat in the back.

They didn’t understand.  His family.  His ball and chain and tiny anchor.  He loved them dearly, but they were really dragging him down.

And then there was the other thing.  Their sex life.  Rick had always had a strong libido.  He could go all day and night and then some.  At first Diane was just as horny as he was and they had amazing sex.  Then along came Beth, and things seemed to fizzle.  She appeared to lose interest, for one thing.  Even before Beth was born — of course, being heavily pregnant put sex on the back burner.  But, this started way before she was in the third trimester.  And then after Beth was born, well, it pretty much went out the window.  Even now, when Beth wasn’t quite three years old, things still hadn’t gotten back to the way they were.  And it looked like they never would...

He was not the most talkative man.  It wasn’t in his nature to say the words — he expressed himself physically.  Touching, caressing, making love.  Cuddling together afterwards in bed, holding her in his arms all night long and never wanting to let her go.  Hard to do when your wife keeps getting up to take care of a crying infant every few hours, then irritably pushes your seeking arms away when she returns to bed...

Now she’d taken to sleeping with Beth.  They’d recently switched Beth from her crib to her first ‘big girl bed.”  A twin bed that Diane had decked out with a frilly lace comforter and pink princess-themed sheets.  Of course, Beth had been afraid of it from the very beginning, refusing to be left alone in it.  When Rick would sit beside her, he’d read her stories from one her many Dr. Seuss books, gently stroking her long golden hair until she fell asleep.

He loved those moments with his little daughter.  She was so beautiful, his little princess, his little love...  He told her this over and over while softly running his fingers through her hair, lightly dragging his fingertips across her scalp, until her breathing slowed to small sighs and then she fell asleep, the lips of her small, red Cupid’s mouth slightly parted.

Then he’d rejoin Diane on the couch in the living room.  He’d reach for Diane’s hand or start to put his arm around her, like he always used to do, but she would shift away from him, drop his hand.

A silent rebuke for something he’d done, but had no idea what.

When Diane sat with Beth at bedtime she ended up falling asleep next to her, and almost always stayed there for the night.  So, no more night-time cuddling, no more middle of the night lovemaking — the kind that makes up for any spats or harsh words which had occurred earlier in the day.  The kind of physical attention and communication which busy couples use to strengthen and support their marriage.  Rick knew he could be difficult, abrupt, critical.  So often the words would come tumbling out of his mouth of their own volition, but the damage was already done.

Slowly, the divide between them grew wider, the chasm seemingly too wide to cross, repair.

When they did have sex, it wasn’t as satisfying for him.  She wasn’t as responsive to him, but something else was missing, and he didn’t know what.  So, he’d taken to giving himself very _unsatisfying_ hand-jobs in the shower, and spent more and more time by himself in the garage, working on teleportation.

He felt so driven to succeed in this particular project.  Other projects and ideas, if it was taking too long to find a solution, he’d just scrap it and move on.  But not this one — it was a compulsion for him, he had to find a way to make it work.  He just _had_  to!  He knew he was close...

Then one Saturday, when Diane had taken Beth to go visit her parents for yet another long weekend, he was working with the latest model of his teleportation gun, tossing apples through the small, portal windows swirling on the wall.  The portals were dark grey in color.  The apples always came back burned—but with each trial, each adjustment to the phase transmitter, the windows became a lighter grey and the apples returned less and less burned.

He was close — he could feel it!  He was bent over the teleportation gun, making adjustments to the energy level of the transducer beam.  He was screwing the panel back on when from across the garage a strange fizzling sound caused him to lift up his head and turn and look.

A large swirling green mass appeared against the far wall in the garage, with a faint smell of ozone.  A man walked through and the green mass behind him disappeared.  He wore black biker boots, faded and torn jeans, a blue t-shirt and a worn black leather jacket.  He held an odd looking, light grey plastic gun of some kind in his hand.  Rick was so busy studying how he was dressed and what he was holding that he hadn’t looked at the man in the face.

He was...him _self!_   The man’s hairstyle was different, but in all other ways, apart from the clothes, Rick could have been looking in a mirror.  Rick’s mouth dropped open in shock.

”Easy, man.  I’m here to help you with the next phase in your project there.”  He nodded down to the teleportation gun Rick still held in his hands.  “Name’s Rick, by the way.  ‘Course, you probably knew that already...”

Rick didn’t know that.  He closed his mouth and watched silently as the man, Rick, walked across the garage to stand on the other side of his work bench.  They faced each other, silently.  Maybe it was because of the novelty of looking at someone almost exactly like yourself, and Rick knew he was a handsome man, no doubt...

But he also felt an instant physical attraction to this man and was embarrassed when he realized his dick was getting hard.  He shifted the gun in his hands to cover himself.

The other Rick seemed to know exactly what was happening to him and suppressed a smirk, but the look on his face remained polite, not mocking.

“First time to meet another Rick, right?  Wait ‘til you check out The Citadel...”  He chuckled, setting the odd-looking gun down on the work bench.  “Say, man, ya got any booze around here?  Beer’d be alright, but whiskey’s even better.  Basically anything alcoholic will do...”

He walked over to where some folded lawn chairs were stacked against a wall and took one, carried it back and opened it.  He sat down with his legs open in a casual man-spread.  He set his arms on the plastic arm rests and leaned back, waiting.

Rick wordlessly set his gun down and went into the house to get beer _and_  whiskey.  He came out with an ice cold six pack still in its plastic rings, the whiskey bottle, and two glasses.  He poured two large measures and the other Rick leaned forward and picked his glass up, lifting it towards Rick in a toast.

”To success.  To _your_  success...”  He took a deep drink.

Rick drained his and immediately refilled his glass.  The two men sat across from each other, the silence now less strained.

“So, wh-wh-where do you come from?  And-And-And what is that?”  Rick pointed to the portal gun lying on the work bench, embarrassed that his stutter had become so pronounced.

The other Rick pulled a small clear container out of an inside jacket pocket.  It contained a small, neon green rock.  It glowed, pulsing with an energy emanating from within its core, and floated inside the container.

He began to explain the intricacies of his portal gun, interdimensional travel, and the green rock that was the power source.  Together the two men began working on Rick’s teleportation gun, making the necessary modifications to convert it into a portal gun capable of interdimensional travel.

They worked into the night, and the night air grew chilly, even though Rick had closed the garage door early on against the prying eyes of his nosey neighbors — some of whom would have been more than happy to tell Diane about Rick’s visitor and activities during her absence.

They chatted easily while they worked, talking about their lives.  They were the same age — no surprise — but the other Rick told him that Ricks were all different ages, all different timelines, storylines.  They were all alike, and yet all unique in their own way.  He said he had a passion for motorcycles and racing — his nickname was Harley.  And Rick had to admit he looked the part.

Finally, it looked as if they’d done everything necessary to upgrade Rick’s gun to a fully functioning portal gun.  All they had left to do was try it.  There was enough whiskey for two more drinks, and they’d finished off the beer.  Rick didn’t want Harley to leave — he still had so many questions!

And he wanted to get to know him better.  Much better.  Their hands had touched on more than one occasion while working on his portal gun, and each time it was as if Rick was hit with an electric shock.  It shot straight down to his crotch and he’d had an erection for the past two hours.  He found himself deliberately grazing the other man’s fingers and hands while working, and he could have sworn that Harley was doing the same thing.

He’d never been in this situation before — had never had the remotest interest in men.  And now he was sporting a hard-on for someone who looked just like himself.  He felt excited and...confused.  He decided to set the confusion aside for later contemplation.

”Man, it’s gettin’ late.  You got anything to eat?  We probably should wait until tomorrow before trying this.  There’s a place — another planet I was gonna take you as your first trip, but this isn’t a good time to go there.”

They stood up and went inside the house.  Rick dug around in the liquor cabinet and came up with a nearly full bottle of scotch rye that his father-in-law liked to drink whenever he came over—which, thankfully, hadn’t been very often lately.  Probably because Diane had been complaining to her parents about their failing marriage...

He shoved those thoughts aside.   _Way_ off to the side.  He didn’t want to think about her tonight.  Or Beth...

Rick ordered a pizza and the two men went into the den and sat on the couch.  Not in opposite corners.  They sipped their whiskeys and sat in a silence that was semi-uncomfortable.  Like that point on a first date just before it becomes physical.  Rick found himself glancing at Harley out of the corners of his eyes, then quickly shifting his eyes away when the man looked back at him.  He gulped his whiskey and shifted uncomfortably.  His cock throbbed and ached with the need for release and strained against his pants.  His heart was pounding and he realized that he was breathing faster.

They each quickly finished off their remaining whiskey.  Rick leaned over to pour scotch into their glasses, then set the bottle down.  He was sitting back up when the man suddenly leaned forward and grabbed his wrist lightly, stopping him.  Rick turned to him in mild surprise and was _real_ surprised when Harley leaned in and kissed him, full on the mouth.

The world stopped.   _Time_ stopped.  The kiss quickly deepened and they reached for each other’s face, moving closer together on the couch.  They explored each other’s mouths with their tongues, sucked and nipped on their lips.  Rick broke away first, sucking in a ragged breath that turned into a moan as the other man kissed and nipped his way down his throat before returning to his mouth.  His kiss was aggressive, passionate.  The bristled whiskers on his unshaven skin rubbed Rick’s neck and face raw and sent tingles down his spine.  He knew Diane liked the way it felt when he hadn’t shaved for a day or two, but he had no idea that this was the effect it had!

Finally, Harley pulled away, his breathing uneven.  He looked at Rick with a grin.  Rick’s eyes were closed, his mouth partially open.  He opened his eyes and looked at Harley.

”I did that ‘cause I knew you wanted to, but were too chicken shit.”

”You’re right, I was.  Now shut the fuck up and kiss me again.”

 

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

They broke away from their kiss, both of them breathing heavily.

”Christ...I...”.  Rick struggled to form his thoughts into words.

”Ya wanna fuck, right?”

”Yeah...But I’ve never...”

”You’ve never fucked a guy before...” Harley finished his sentence for him.  “Me neither, man.”  He laughed, a low easy laugh, heavy with irony.  It made Rick both feel more relaxed and comfortable while sending a tremble of excitement through him.

”Shit...this is...this is fucked up...”.  Rick groaned and sat back against the couch and scraped his hands over his face, noting his 5 o’clock shadow and wondering if Harley had found it as stimulating as Rick had when he felt his.

”Where’s your Diane and Beth?  Upstairs sleeping?”  It was the first time for them to come up in conversation all night.

”My...I’m sorry, how did you call them?  ‘My Diane and Beth’?”

“Yeah.  Most Rick’s have a Diane and a Beth.  Not all, though.  I don’t...”  He looked away while he took a huge slug of scotch.

His actions told Rick that this wasn’t a good topic of conversation right now.  If ever.

”They’re at — she took Beth and went to her folks’ for the weekend.  Might be an extended stay.  I don’t — she didn’t say when she was coming back.  Things haven’t been so great between us...lately.”  Now it was his turn to take a drink in a bid to drop the topic.

“Well...”. Harley looked around the room, noting how it bore the obvious signs of a woman’s touch, with its air of family and domesticity.  He turned back to Rick and looked him up and down.  “Let’s go back to my place, then.  That is, if you want to...to explore this further...”  He put his hand on Rick’s shoulder.

“Yeah.  Yeah, I do, actually...”  Rick laughed, suddenly feeling more at ease with the situation.  Somehow he couldn’t see himself having sex with this man in the same bed that he slept in with his wife.

”Good a place to go as any, for your first portal trip.”  Harley stood up, picking up the bottle.  “Mind if we take this scotch?  It’s some good shit.”

”Sure.  It’s my father-in-law’s anyway.  Fuck ‘im.”

Just then the doorbell rang and Rick jumped, startled.

”Easy, man.  It’s the pizza, remember?”

”Shit, I totally forgot...”  Rick went and paid for the pizza, then came back, holding the large box uncertainly...Did he bring it with them?  Would it travel through the portal?

”Bring that pizza, too.  I’m fucking starving.”  Well, that answered that.

Rick scribbled a hasty note to Diane with a vague mention of a sudden out of town trip to see a friend.  He didn’t know if she’d believe that or not.  He didn’t really _have_ any friends...

He realized he didn’t care _what_ she believed.

Harley traded him the bottle for the pizza so he could operate the gun.  He gave Rick the coordinates to his place in his dimension and Rick entered them into his gun, excitement coursing through his veins.  His first portal trip, _finally_!  As to where he was going, and why, well...that...  He felt his dick growing hard again.

Well, that was going to have to be that.

Rick aimed the gun at the wall and fired it, then stepped through the swirling green mass without hesitation, without so much as a backwards glance.  Harley followed on his heels. 

 

_tbc_

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Walking through the portal for the first time was an experience.  The brief swirl of greens obscuring his vision, the sizzle of electricity on his skin and buzzing in his ears, the tang of ozone burning his nostrils... None of it lasted for more than a microsecond, to be sure, but by the same token it seemed to last a lifetime.

He knew he’d never have that same experience again. 

He stepped through into the den of an older house.  It looked to be out in the country, if the trees and fields visible through the windows were any indication.  It was late afternoon, and the setting sun sent golden fingers of sunlight stabbing through the trees.  He turned around to see Harley stepping through behind him, then the swirling green portal closed.  He wondered if there was a way to set it on some sort of timer, or delay...

”Have a seat.  I’ll get some glasses.”  Harley set the pizza box down on the coffee table then left the room.

Now Rick was beginning to feel uncomfortable with this decision.  In the middle of the night, back at his house — his dimension, he reminded himself — their physical attraction and kissing had seemed kind of...spontaneous and under wraps.  Now that he’d made the deliberate decision to carry it further, and here it was mostly broad daylight...

Harley reappeared with a roll of paper towels and two tumblers full of ice.  If he thought anything about Rick still standing in the middle of the room, instead of sitting down on the couch, he didn’t say anything.  He handed Rick a glass, and set his down on the table along with the paper towels.  Then he took off his leather jacket and lazily tossed it over onto a nearby recliner.  He sat down on the couch, just left of center, on one side of the pizza box.  Rick followed suit and sat on the other side.  He poured out two healthy measures of scotch while Harley flipped open the lid of the box.

They began eating, and Harley reached for the tv remote and turned it on.

Speaking around a mouthful of pizza, “Man, wait ‘til you get yourself set up with interdimensional cable.  There’s some seriously goofy shit out there.”

He flipped the channels around until he came to a show that looked like it was a knock-off of “The A Team” but with something that looked like an alligator for one character, and one Mr. T kind of dude who, instead of a Mohawk, had his Afro pulled into two huge ponytail balls on top of his head.

“Aw, man.  I love this — this show’s great.  This is it’s first season.”  He sat back with a pizza slice in one hand, his legs sprawled open in a comfortable man-spread, and rested his glass on his thigh.  Rick sat back and soon found himself engrossed in the program, and laughing along with Harley at the commercials in-between.  

After it ended Harley found a show that pit a car against a man, inside an over-sized boxing ring.  They watched the cars win 9 times out of every 10, laughing at the idiots who had their mutilated bodies hauled away when they lost.  

Harley produced a blunt the size of a small cigar and lit it, taking a deep drag and handing it over to Rick.

”This here’s from this planet...” he began, holding the smoke in as long as a possible, “...their entire...whole economy is based on pot...” He exhaled the smoke and took a ragged breath.  “This shit’s like droppin’ acid and getting stoned without — there’re no bad trips...”

Rick accepted the joint and took an equally deep drag, then coughed slightly, expelling some of the smoke.  He handed it back with a sheepish grin.  “Been awhile...” he managed, without letting any more smoke escape.

The level of the scotch in the bottle quickly went down and half the blunt was gone.  Rick felt hazy and stoned, pleasantly drunk, and, yes, like he was trippin’ on some kind of good acid.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent an evening just kickin’ back, drinking with another guy and watching mindless shit on tv.  Most men — most people — annoyed the fuck out of him.  Diane had long ago stopped inviting other couples over for dinner because Rick would either piss off or get pissed off by her friend’s husband.  They were all dumbshits, in his opinion, and he couldn’t be bothered to waste his time with them.

He felt a connection with Harley, a kinship, like some kind of brotherhood — with a hefty dose of sexual desire thrown in for good measure.

Harley flipped through the channels and found something that, based on the cheesy music and grunting and groaning from the characters, looked like it was some kind of alien porn.  Which Harley told him it was.

”Christ, man, I think I’m too drunk to fuck...”  Laughing, Harley let his head drop back onto the back of the couch and closed his eyes.

”Shit...I could never be too drunk...”  And he slid closer to Harley and stroked his cheek, causing the other man to open his eyes and lift his head to look at Rick.

Rick leaned in and kissed him, stroking his tongue across Harley’s lips, taking his lower lip in his teeth and pulling gently.  Harley groaned, opening his mouth, and Rick slipped his tongue inside.  Their tongues slid across each other, fighting for dominance, then Rick yielded.  Harley, it turned out, was a fucking good kisser.  He kissed and nipped his way down Rick’s throat, then sucked and licked his neck.  Rick’s hands gripped Harley by the arms as he reveled in these new sensations.  The feel of Harley’s unshaven skin scrapping against his own, the man’s lips and tongue assaulting his mouth, his neck.  He wondered if this is was how it felt for Diane...

He pushed her out of his head.

They kissed and tongued each other, each exploring the novelty of kissing another man.  The stubbled skin over the strong jaw, the taste in their mouths of the whiskey and spices from the pizza.  The more aggressive style of kissing than what any woman would have.  Harley held Rick’s head in his large hands, holding him in place while he sucked and nibbled his lips, then opened his mouth and gave him another ball-jangling deep ass kiss, rolling his tongue around Rick’s mouth.

”Fuck...you’re fuckin’...you know what you’re doing, I’ll say that.”  Rick finally pulled away to catch a breath.

”Yeah, I kind of had to..I have to take my time with the ladies...most chicks can’t handle — can’t take me otherwise...”  Harley was equally breathless.

This comment intrigued Rick.  He was big, too.  When he and a Diane first met and started fucking, she couldn’t take all of him at once.  Had to cum a few times by Rick’s hand or mouth, or both, and even then she could still take only about three quarters of his dick.  He’d hoped that things would change after she had Beth, but there were complications during the delivery and Beth had to be delivered by emergency C-section.  They were advised against having any more children, and after some discussion Rick got a vasectomy.

His erection had been straining uncomfortably against his pants, causing them to tent.  Now was as good a time as any...He sat back and unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and freed his erection.  His was already dripping with precum.

Harley did the same and Rick’s eyebrow went up slightly at the impressive erection that jutted out, deep red and shiny with precum collecting around the head and running down the shaft.

“I can see where — how some chicks may have a problem with that...”  Spontaneously, he leaned down and with a long sweep of his tongue he licked the precum running down the shaft, which brought him to the tip.  

Rick took the head in his mouth and sucked, tonguing the slit and swirling it around.  He knew it would taste salty - he’d tasted his own before, out of curiosity.  But this was different — there was also a muskiness, a sort of manliness.  It was arousing, stimulating, and sent a jolt straight into his cock. 

“Man, you don’t have to...” Harley had begun, then interrupted himself with a deep groan of pleasure.  His hips jerked forward and he reached down and threaded his hands into Rick’s hair.  “Christ...aw fuck...”  His closed his eyes and dropped his head onto the back of the couch.  He gasped and groaned while Rick took his time blowing him.

Rick tongued and sucked him off, pumping his hand along the shaft and twisting as he came up.  With his other hand he fondled Harley’s balls, then with one finger he stroked the sensitive skin between his ass and the base of his sack. For a man who said he’d never fucked another guy before, Rick gave head better than any woman Harley’d ever had — paid or otherwise.

”Jesus...fuck...”  With effort Harley made himself pull Rick’s head up to make him stop, and Rick released his mouth with a soft pop that drew another gasp of pleasure from Harley’s mouth.  “Man, I’m gonna cum if you keep doin’ that...”

Licking his lips and wiping his chin, Rick laid back against the couch.  He lifted his hips and pulled his pants down to his thighs.  “Trade off, then.”

Harley took a deep swig of scotch — Dutch courage?, wetting his whistle? — then he bent over Rick’s crotch and engulfed his cock in his mouth without hesitation.  Rick sucked in breath with a slight hiss and reflexively bumped his hips up.  Whether intentional or not, the coolness left behind by that drink of whiskey combined with the warmth of Harley’s mouth was an incredible sensation.  He’d have to remember to do that when it was his turn again.  Harley’s head bobbed up and down while he stroked around Rick’s shaft.  He cupped Rick’s balls, stroking and massaging them.  Rick reached down and grasped Harley’s head to guide him while fighting the urge not to thrust his hips up into his face.

”Stop...stop...”  Rick finally managed in between groans.  “You’re making me — I’m gettin’ ready to blow my load and I don’t want to cum just yet.”

”Round two in the bedroom, then?”

”Yeah, yeah...let’s go...”  They both stood up and pulled their pants up slightly, then Harley led the way to the back of his house where the bedroom was.  "Actually, if you count my house, this would be round three..."

Harley laughed.

****

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Harley’s room was sparsely furnished.  A huge bed with a wrought iron frame took up most of the space, two small bedside tables with lamps on either side.

”We’re gonna...probably need some — some kind of lube...”  Rick started, hesitantly.

Harley was taking off his shirt, then stopped.  “Shit, you’re right.  I was just so horny, I didn’t think of that...I don’t know if I have...”  He went to one of the bedside tables and opened the drawer, rummaging the contents around.  “Shit.  Check the other one.”

Rick went and opened the other drawer and came up with one small tube of lubricant which was mostly empty. 

“Fuck.”

Harley put his shirt back on and tucked himself back in his jeans, zipping and buttoning them.  Rick’s hopes flagged, but he misinterpreted Harley’s actions.

”W-W-Wait — hang on just one second.  Five — ten minutes, tops.  I’ll be right back...”  He left the room.  

Rick heard the sizzling whirl of the portal, indicating that Harley had left.  Presumably to go get some lube.  Rick was still standing in the middle of the room with his pants open, his dick growing soft.  He looked down at it.

”Well, fuck...”  He stripped out of his remaining clothes and went in the adjoining bathroom to take a leak.  He looked at the bathtub enclosed by a plain, white shower curtain.  Might as well.  Diane always made him shower before they had sex, even after all their years together.  It still always killed the mood a little bit for him.  Like he was unclean.  But this time it made sense.

He cleaned himself thoroughly, then ran his soapy hands up and down his shaft, bringing his erection back, harder than ever.  He was standing in the hot water, stroking himself when Harley stepped in from around the curtain.

”Man, you’re not gettin’ yourself off without me, are you?”  Harley moved closer to Rick and the two men kissed.  This time their kiss was immediate and aggressive, no more awkwardness or tentative exploration of the situation.  They were the same height, so no bending over, straining their neck or back, like with Diane....

Rick realized he had to stop comparing everything to his wife.  He reached down with a soapy hand and stroked and fondled Harley’s partially erect cock, bringing it standing to attention with full force.  Harley groaned into his mouth, enjoying the slippery feel of Rick’s hand sliding up and down, gripping with just the right amount of firmness.  Their cocks bumped against each other and Rick held them together, stroking them with perfect pressure and speed, rubbing his thumb across the heads.  The effect was incredible and both men were groaning and gasping into each other’s mouths.

Harley pulled away, and said shakily, “Fuck, I’m gonna cum all over you if you keep this up.  What, uh...what do you want, man?”

”Just...wait...”  Rick soaped up his hands then reached around and slid one soapy hand between Harley’s cheeks, stroking his ass.  He kissed Harley, sliding his tongue in his mouth while he applied pressure with his fingertips, circling and stroking across the puckered entrance, making Harley groan against his lips.  He carefully pushed one finger in and Harley shuddered, his legs buckling.  He gripped Rick’s arms, squeezing tight.

“Fuck...fuck _me_...Oh my God...”

”Now we can go.  Your water’s fucking freezing, man...”

Indeed, they’d been messing around in the shower for so long that they’d nearly run through all the hot water.  Harley ducked under the shower head to rinse off the remaining soap.

”Aww, this is nothing, there’s still some hot water left.  The cold water’s about 66 degrees.  The well’s 350 feet underground.”

”Well let’s get the fuck out, I don’t need to feel it to believe it.”

Harley laughed and turned off the water.  They stepped out of the tub and shared his one bath towel.

”You’re gonna need — gonna have to get more towels, dude, if...” Rick paused, looking at Harley questioningly.

”Yeah, don’t worry.  I will...”  Harley leaned in and kissed him on the lips.  “Come on.  I don't want to have gone all the way to The Citadel for nothing...I hate going to that place...”

Out on the bed was a black plastic bag.  Harley dumped out the contents: two large tubes of lube.  No condoms.

”I’m clean, if that’s what your wondering.  But there’s a clinic on The Citadel, it’s located right across the street from the sex shop where I got the lube.  They can cure every kind of social disease.  Even ones you’ve never heard of, from other dimensions.  And,” he laughed, “I doubt you’ll get me pregnant.  So, you know...” 

”Bottom’s up, huh?”  Rick grinned at him.  “Come on, I get the feeling you wanna catch the first pitch, right?”

They lay down on the bed together.  Harley ended up on his back and Rick hovered over him, kissing him while he reached down to stroke and caress Harley’s thick cock.  He sat back and popped open the cap on the lube and squirted out a generous amount. The few times he and Diane had tried anal intercourse he’d had to lube the crap out of her, no pun intended, and take his time stretching her open.  He loved it, of course, but she could never really get into it.

He took his time, stroking and caressing Harley’s puckered entrance while they continued to kiss.  Then he carefully inserted one finger, pushing past the tight ring of muscle.  Harley tensed up, muttering something between a groan and a curse.

”Just breathe, man...”  Rick continued stroking in and out. 

”Christ, I _am_...Oh, fuck, this feels...”  Harley reached down and began to stroke his own cock.

Rick curved his finger, stroking it across Harley’s prostate.  Harley arched off the bed and he cried out.

”OH, JESUS, _FUCK!_   What is that?”  

Rick laughed.  “That’s your prostate, you idiot.  Didn’t you take high school biology?” 

“I dropped...dropped out...School’s a waste...oh _FUCK!”_

Rick had applied more lube and inserted a second finger, gently stretching out the ringed muscle.  Harley’s eyes were closed and he was taking deep, shaking breaths while still stroking himself.  Precum was dripping out of his cock and down his hand.  

Rick inserted a third finger and slowly stroked in and out, pushing in all the way to his knuckles, then curling them and dragging across his prostate on the way back.  As he pulled out, he scissored his fingers, stretching Harley as much as possible.

Rick had been stroking himself with his other hand.  His dick was beet red and rock hard and dripping with precum.  Harley’s was curved up to his stomach, a pool of precum beneath it.  Harley was groaning with pleasure.

“You — you ready?  I’m not gonna be able wait much longer here, before I —“

”Fuck yeah.  Do it.”

Rick lubed himself up and then scooted himself between Harley’s legs.  “Take a deep breath...”. He waited for Harley to breathe in and relax himself, then he slowly pushed in.  He paused, looking up at Harley, who was breathing deep and gripping the sheets, his eyes closed.  Then Rick pushed past that ring of muscle, groaning with how good it felt.

”Christ, you’re tight.  Oh, fuck...”. He rose up on his knees, pulling Harley’s legs on either side of him.  He slowly stroked in and out, gradually going deeper each time.  He was fighting the urge to just pound into the man beneath him.

”Ohmygod, oh fuck!  Oh, yeah.  Fuck me, man.  Jesus...”

”You’re so tight...God, you feel incredible...”  

Both men were panting and gasping with pleasure, interspersed with deep groans.

Rick picked up his speed until he was going at a brisk rhythm.  Harley’s back was arched off the bed, and he reached up with both arms and grabbed the wrought iron headboard to keep from being slammed into it, his muscles tensing with the effort.  The headboard was banging against the wall behind him.  

Rick was firmly gripping him around his hips, pulling him in with each thrust.  He changed his angle, searching for —- 

“AAAAAHHH.   _FUCK!”_ Harley went as rigid as a plank as Rick stroked across his prostate, over and over.  “I’m gonna fucking cum — oh, shit, _FUCK_!”

”Cum for me, man.  Let me see that big cock blow it’s load...”

“Oh, _CHRIST,_ fucking Jesus!   _FUCK!!!”_ Harley’s body shuddered as his cock spewed thick, hot stripes of cum up to his chest, and he tightened spasmodically around Rick’s own thrusting cock.

”Yeah, man, fuck, fuckin’ FUCK!”  Rick gave one last thrust into Harley, driving as deep as he could, gripping him by the hips to hold him place.  His body trembled and shook as his orgasm ripped through him like a shock wave.  His cock throbbed and emptied deep inside Harley.  He stroked in and out a few more times before pulling out and collapsing onto the bed on his side, facing him.  Harley’s eyes were closed and he smiled, open mouthed, as he continued to drag in air.

Rick reached out and tentatively placed one hand, palm side down, on Harley’s sweaty chest, still heaving with his rapid breathing and smeared with his cum.  Harley laid his hand over it and gripped it tight, his eyes still closed, still smiling.

”That was...fucking incredible...I’ve never...cum so hard...in my life...”

”Me neither, man...”  Rick was breathing heavily and sweating.

”Mind if I just sleep, for a bit...Then we can...switch...”  Harley’s voice was thick and drowsy.  He felt completely wiped out.

In response, Rick sat up and reached down to where the covers had gotten shoved to the bottom of the bed.  He pulled them up, covering them both, then turned and spooned up against Harley.

”Man, your house is fucking _cold...”_

Harley rolled onto to side and Rick scooted up behind him and wrapped one arm over his chest.  Doing it as much for warmth as he was for cuddling.  Harley took his hand and laced his fingers through Rick’s, then gave him a gentle squeeze.

He mumbled into the pillow.  “The water’s cold, the _house_ is cold...Bitch, bitch, bitch...  I just need to...go light a fire...  I’ll do it...in a minute...”

His deep breathing indicated that that wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon, so Rick just snuggled up tighter and was soon asleep, himself.

 

_tbc._

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Harley woke up a few hours later and got up to take a piss.  His ass was sore, but in a good way. Man, that was something...cumming like that.  He looked at the other man sleeping his bed. Harley would have never in a million years thought he would have done what they just did tonight.  Before this, he’d had not one ounce of attraction to another man.  
  
But this guy...this is _Rick_ ...  Harley had felt such a connection with him, the moment they’d locked eyes in Rick’s garage.  Like there was some sort of preordained bond. Not just sexual or physical, but on a deeper, philosophical level....  
  
He’d met a number of Ricks, had helped a handful with their portal guns.  But those encounters were just a matter of helping that particular Rick work out the final bugs with their portal guns, so they could begin interdimensional travel.  He was also supposed to tell them the basic rules that all Rick’s were expected to follow—-although the thought of any Rick following along with a rule was laughable.  But it was his job to at least get the point across — at any rate, that was how The Council wanted it.  
  
He, Harley, had only decided to do this after his Diane had died.  He was devastated at the time, had nearly gone insane with grief and guilt.  Then this opportunity arose, and after some hesitation he took it. At least this way he wasn’t sitting at home alone, drinking himself into oblivion every night — or, to be more precise, _her_ home, the home that had belonged to her parents...  
  
Rick stirred in bed and Harley started towards him, intending to wake him up.  His dick was getting hard just thinking about it and he licked his lips in anticipation.  But first he needed to go light the fire out in the den. The house _was_ fucking freezing… Why Diane’s parents had never put in a furnace was beyond him...  She always went on about how romantic the fire was — but then she wasn’t the one who had to clean out the fucking ashes and chop wood and shit.  
  
He went outside on the back porch to get some kindling and an armful of logs.  At least living out in the sticks like this gave him access to a limitless supply of firewood.  It was just a fucking pain in the ass.  
  
He was kneeling on the rug in front of the fireplace, laying out the kindling and newspaper when he felt a hand on his shoulder.  He looked up to see Rick standing beside him. Rick handed Harley one of the smaller logs, then squat down on his haunches next to him.  
  
”Y-Y-You ever think about moving into this century and heating this house with something more modern?”  
  
”Every fucking day, man.”  He struck a match off the flagstone hearth and lit the crumpled newspaper nestled within the teepee tower of kindling.  The flames rapidly spread through the newspaper and began licking away at the kindling. Soon it was established enough that Harley could lay one or two of the smaller logs on top, them he stood up.  
  
”That’s a start.  In a little bit I’ll have to bank it with some of the larger hardwood logs, then we’re all set for rest of the night.  
  
”So...are you finished playing fuckin’ ‘pioneer’ for now?”  Rick stood up.  
  
”Yeah...”  Harley grinned at him.  
  
They moved into each other’s space and kissed, somewhat chastely at first, then it quickly deepened.  Rick felt almost lightheaded by Harley’s expert manipulation of his lips and tongue inside his mouth.  He put one hand on the man’s waist to steady himself. After that, it was second nature to slide it down to his crotch and grasp his cock.  Harley moaned into his mouth while Rick stroked him, running his thumb across the plush head with its first drops of precum.  
  
”I can’t wait to feel that beast inside me...” Rick growled into his ear, and Harley moaned again in response.  
  
”Then what are we fucking waiting for?”  
  
They broke away from their embrace and went back to the bedroom.  
  
This time it was Rick’s turn to lie on his back, knees bent and legs spread.    
  
Harley hovered over him and kissed his mouth, then sat back.  
  
”Wait...I think this would be...”  He reached and took an extra pillow and held it next to Rick.  “Lift up your ass, man...” Rick complied and Harley slid the pillow so that Rick’s ass was resting on it, his hips tilted up.  
  
”I think it’ll be more comfortable for you this way...Just...speaking from experience...”  
  
Rick grinned at him and Harley leaned over him and kissed him and nuzzled his neck while he stroked and fondled Rick’s cock.  He reached one finger and stroked across the sensitive area behind his balls, applying just the right amount of pressure. Rick bumped his hips up and moaned into Harley’s mouth, reaching his hands up and curling his fingers into Harley’s hair.    
  
Harley continued to stroke and pump Rick’s cock while he kissed him.  It was a different experience, making love to a man, compared to a woman.  The signals were different...of course the body parts were different—but by the same token, it was even easier—- he just did to Rick what he knew would feel good for him...   He continued to stroke and pump Rick’s cock, feeling the precum welling up from the tip and spilling down the side and over his hand. He cradled his balls, massaging them, then reached one finger and stroked it back and forth across Rick’s puckered entrance, circling around it, teasingly.  
  
Rick bumped his hips and moaned, then he reached down to stroke his own cock, hard, just how he liked, pulling at the shaft and making the skin stretch.  Up and down his hand went, while Harley stimulated and stroked his hole. Harley paused long enough to squirt a liberal amount of lube onto his fingers, rubbing it between them to warm it up a bit.  Then he pushed his index finger passed the tight ring of muscle and began to slowly stroke slow and deep. Rick groaned, his hips bucking up off the bed. Then Harley curled his finger, twisting slightly while he pulled down, trying to find that same spot that Rick had found in him —-  
  
“Holy FUCK!”  Rick’s hips lurched up into the air, his body tensing and his head rolling back.  “Fucking CHRIST, man, don’t stop _doing_ that...”  
  
Harley grinned as he continued to stroke Rick in and out across his prostate.  Rick’s cries climbed higher and higher, and Harley thought he might cum, so he backed off.  Rick glared at him and cursed him in frustration.  Harley ignored him and added a second finger and slowly stroked in and out, stretching the tight ring of muscle open, but avoiding Rick’s prostate.  He added a third finger and Rick’s moans became more intense.  
  
”Just...fuck me, man...I can’t wait any longer... _please_ ...”  Rick’s hips were bumping up into the air and he continued to stroke his cock, now beet red and swollen, precum streaming unchecked from the tip.  
  
Harley sat back, pausing long enough to liberally coat his rock hard dick with lube, then he scooted forward between Rick’s spread legs, grasping his hips, pulling them towards him.  He gritted his teeth, trying to go slow while he pushed his head against him.  
  
”Ready?  
  
”Shit, yeah, man, do it...”  
  
With one smooth thrust, Harley pushed himself into Rick.  Rick cried out and Harley groaned loudly as that tight ring of muscle ran along his dick as he pushed his way inside — tighter than any virgin’s pussy he’d ever had.  He wanted to drive and thrust himself into Rick over and over, but knew he couldn’t do that without hurting the man underneath him. He slowly pushed himself deeper, then withdrawing a little bit, before pushing his way in further each time.    
  
“Holy Jesus...aw fucking-A...”  Rick’s hips lifted up and he pushed himself against Harley, driving Harley all the way into him.  
  
“Oh, fuck... _fuck_ ...”  Harley struggled to maintain control.  He pulled out part way, then slowly pushed back in, allowing Rick to adjust to him.  
  
”Quit fuckin’ teasin’ me, man.   _Fuck_ me.  Fuck me _hard!”_

“Whatever you say...”

Harley grasped Rick’s hips, lifting him up and holding him in place, then he began driving himself into him with sharp snapping thrusts with his hips.  His strokes immediately ploughed across Rick’s prostate, and Rick’s eyes rolled back and he squinted them shut, cursing and groaning, his body rigid.  He, too, had to brace himself away from the headboard lest he be shoved against it by Harley’s powerful thrusts.  
  
”God, you feel so tight around my dick... _Christ..._ ”  His fast rhythm kept him from talking, and he focused instead on pounding hard into Rick, driven on by his own sensations and the sound of Rick’s moans as he cursed and cried out in ecstasy.  
  
“Can you take this poundin’, man?  Take it, fucking _take it!”_  
  
”Christ, don’t stop, I’m there...almost there...”  Rick reached down with one hand and stroked himself hard, crying out as he came, throwing thick, white spurts up on his chest.  He spasmed around Harley, and Harley swore and buried himself deep inside him, throbbing as he came. He collapsed on top of Rick, panting with exhaustion.  Rick held him across his broad, sweaty back.  
  
They lay there, their breathing gradually slowing.  
  
”Fuckin’- A...”  Rick sighed with contentment and stroked his hands across Harley’s back.  Harley pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at Rick.  His eyes were closed and he had a tired smile on his face.  Harley leaned down and kissed him on the lips, gently nuzzled his neck.  Rick hummed with pleasure, then mumbled, his eyes still closed.  
  
”That feels good, but get off me, man.  You’re gettin’ fucking heavy.”  Rick’s eyes were struggling to stay open and his voice was drowsy and thick.  
  
Harley laughed and slid off to the side.  He slipped out of the bed to go bank up the fire with some of the larger pieces of split hardwood logs.  When he got back to the bedroom Rick was lying on his side and drifting to sleep.  Harley spooned up behind him and wrapped his arms around him.  Rick settled into his embrace, groaning with contentment.  
  
”Thanks, man...that was...”  
  
He fell asleep before he could finish.

_tbc_


	6. Chapter 6

Rick woke up with his usual morning wood casually jutting out in front of his body.  What was not usual was the weight of heavy limbs entangled with his own, and the unmistakable sounds of a man’s deep breathing behind him.

He was lying on his side and Harley was curled up against his back, his forehead buried in Rick’s thick, unruly hair at the base of his neck.  His breath was warm against Rick’s skin. One of Harley’s long thighs rested between both of his, and Harley’s arm was draped loosely over his waist, his palm warm against his chest.  Rick lightly wrapped his hand around Harley’s and began stroking it softly with his thumb, deep in thought.   
  
Lying together like this, this physical intimacy—he’d sorely missed this with Diane.  Here in Harley’s bed — in Harley’s  _ arms _ — he was content.  There was none of the shock or revulsion which usually happens the morning after a drunken one-night stand.  Especially after  _ last _ night.

He had absolutely no regrets.

He wasn’t sure what would happen now.  What  _ should _ happen.  Well, yes.  Yes, he was.  In one respect, at least.  His marriage with Diane had already been on its last legs, with neither one of them making much effort to save it.  Now it was as good as over, as far as Rick was concerned. He was ready to move on.

Prior to last night, something had been holding him back from making that final mental step which would ultimately carry him out the door.  He hadn’t really thought about it in any literal or concrete way. In some respects, he had would have said that it was just his hyper-focus on the teleportation gun which he’d been working on so obsessively over the past several weeks.

And not wanting to leave Beth, of course.

If he was a God-fearing man, like Diane’s idiot father, then he’d find it easy to believe that last night had been planned by a higher power.  But Rick neither believed in nor feared God. What had happened happened, and Rick was ready to run with it. Whether or not his next stop would be here was up to Harley.

And judging by how the man was holding him in his sleep…

Harley’s hand twitched slightly under his, and his breathing pattern changed.  Rick lay there quietly, enjoying the experience of feeling the man behind him gradually wake up.  Minutes ticked by and he continued slowly stroking his thumb across Harley’s hand. Then Harley shifted slightly and pressed his lips against the back of Rick’s neck, sending a shiver down his spine that went straight to his dick.  It swelled larger, throbbing. Harley tightened his arm around Rick, then he slid his hand down to Rick’s cock, engulfing it with his large, warm hand.

Rick grunted quietly, then sighed with pleasure as Harley slowly began stroking him, up and down, pulling the foreskin over his head just the way he liked, then pushing it back on the downstroke.  Harley’s lips stayed on the back of his neck, warm and wet. Rick could feel his tongue probe against his skin, a soft point of pressure between two bands of gentle sucking. He moaned and closed his eyes, then tipped his head back so that it rested against Harley’s, luxuriating in the man’s gentle dual assault on his body.

Harley slid his own swollen cock up between Rick’s ass cheeks and slowly rocked his hips in time with his hand. With each rocking motion the head of his cock dragged across the sensitive skin just behind Rick’s ball sack, and the shaft brushed across his puckered entrance.  They both shuddered with pleasure. Gradually Harley built them both up to orgasm. Rick’s cock ran with precum, and that which flowed from Harley’s slit helped slick him up, making him slide back and forth with even greater ease.

Both men were soon moaning, their breathing more rapid, and Rick felt the familiar tightening in his balls as he grew closer to release.  Harley increased his hand movements, stroking Rick harder until Rick’s hips hitched forward reflexively. Rick cried out as cum spurted up against his stomach and chest.  Harley stroked him through his orgasm, then released Rick’s softening cock so he could take his own throbbing dick, pumping himself hard and fast. With a hoarse cry he came, shooting hot cum onto Rick’s back.  

He laid his hand on Rick's hip and pressed his forehead against the back of Rick’s neck.  They lay like that together, their breathing gradually slowing. Then Harley kissed the back of Rick’s neck before pulling away from him to lie on his back with one arm above his head.

Sighing, Rick turned to lie on his back beside him, resting his forearm across his forehead and staring up at the ceiling.  He felt Harley’s fingers brush against his and turned his head to look at him. The two men reached and entwined their fingers together where their hands rested on the pillows above their heads, and stared silently into each other’s eyes.

No words needed to be said.

 

_ tbc _


	7. Chapter 7

“What do you plan to do?”

“Th-Th-The only thing I _can_ do.  Go back and-and-and tell her I want a divorce.”  

Rick and Harley were drinking beer and shooting pool at a small pub in a nearby town.  It guaranteed that they would talk and not get tempted into messing around and fucking.  Rick had stayed with Harley two more nights. Long enough for them to talk for hours, in between marathon fuck sessions, and decide that they wanted to be together.  Now. Always. And not off and on, intermittent weekends here and there, when Rick could find an excuse to get away.

Rick decided that he would still work at the engineering firm — he’d just portal in and out every day.    He wasn’t really interested in the job so much. The money was just too good to leave.

“You don’t need to keep working there, man.  I _told_ you.  I got plenty of money.  Diane’s folks were loaded.  Besides, there’s a lot better ways for you to occupy — spend your time.  Keep working on all those projects of yours — just do it here, in the shop.”

Rick took a few shots on the pool table, thinking it over.  It wasn’t Diane he was thinking of. He wanted to provide for Beth, make sure she had a good future.  And he wanted her to have health insurance. Diane stopped working soon after they got married, and she was just a little too comfortable with the whole ‘stay at home mom’ role, he thought, for him to expect her to jump up and go out and get a job after all these years.

He missed his next shot and came over to the pool table where Harley was sitting, drinking his beer and watching him.

“Yeah, ok.  I-I-I just want to take care of Beth.  Sh-Sh-She deserves that, at least.”

Harley gave him a small, ironic smile, reaching one hand out to cover Rick’s hand where it rested on the pub table.  “Always the Daddy, right?”

“You should know, Papi.”  Rick turned his hand over to give Harley’s a squeeze.  Then he released it to pick up his beer.

They’d started using the pet names for each other early on.  Rick was pounding into Harley, thrusting deep and hard with each word, making the man moan and cry out, writhing underneath him as his orgasm washed over him in waves.

“Who’s your Daddy, man, who makes you _cum_ so _fucking_ **_hard?_**    Tell me!”

“AHHHH!  You are, Daddy!  AHHHHH! Fuck! Oh, CHRIST, fuck me, Daddy!”

“Jesus, you feel so fucking good when you cum.  Christ, Papi, you’re so tight. _Fuck!”_

Rick began losing his rhythm as his own orgasm grew close.  He gave a hoarse shout as his cock jerked and throbbed inside Harley, shooting his cum deep inside him.  He collapsed on top of Harley, his heart pounding as he breathed raggedly against Harley’s neck. Harley turned his head and kissed his cheek while slowly stroking his back.

“Papi, huh?”

Rick pushed himself up on his elbows and smiled tiredly down at Harley, then leaned down and kissed him softly on the lips.  The word had slipped out of his mouth without him even thinking about it.

“We can’t both be ‘Daddy’, man.  Besides, you should take it as a compliment.”  Rick rolled off Harley and onto his back. “It was what I called my grandfather.  Only man in my family who was ever good to me, who ever cared about me. My dad was a total dick…”

He threw his forearm across his forehead, deep in thought, his face clouding over as his mind filled with dark memories of his childhood.  His grandfather had died when he was barely in his teens. After that he’d really struggled.

Harley got up on one elbow and looked down at him.  “Mine, too, man. Fuckin’ drunk beat the livin’ shit out of me everyday.  I ran away when I was thirteen. Couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Thirteen, huh?  That’s young. Where’d you go?”

“Wandered the streets awhile.  Got as far away from that asshole as fast as I could.  Rode the rails from town to town, hitchhiked. Every once in awhile I’d stop for a bit, work at some place to get some cash, then move on.  Fast food, shit like that. Then I ended up out here, came across a motorcycle shop that was lookin’ for help, mostly just grunt work, but the guy was willin’ to train me.  Sort of like an apprentice. He and his wife took me in. They were an older couple. Didn’t have kids of their own, so…”

“Instant family, right?”

“Yeah, for both of us.  They were good people. Hilly was a little on the religious side, but Jack told her I was old enough to know what I wanted, and to lay off the Bible thumpin’, so she did.  Eventually.”

He grinned, warmer memories running through his head.  Before he moved in with Jack and Hilly, he’d never known what a real Christmas was like, or any of the other holidays that families usually celebrated together.  His mother had gotten sick of the beatings, too, and left when he was six, left him to deal with his dad and his drunken rages all by himself.

Hilly and Jack transformed his life in so many ways.  He kept in touch with them after he met Diane, moved out and then got married.  They had both been so happy for him, delighted at the thought of having grandkids…

But that never happened...

“I got away from my dad by going to college.  The school let me graduate a couple of years early.  I got a full scholarship to a university out of state.  Never looked back.”

“Did you finish?”

“Fuck.  Barely. God, it was boring as hell.  But about halfway through my first semester, the Dean at my school saw that I was struggling.  M-M-Maybe it was my age, my attitude… He assigned me to a professor to be my academic advisor and-and-and he helped me stay focused.  Hilliard and Jacqueline were their names. But they were both too formal to have nicknames. I always called them Professor Hilliard and Ms. Jacqueline.

“The scholarship covered my housing and meals, but he and his wife started having me over for dinner a lot, on weekends, holidays, between semesters.  When the college was empty and students went home, so I wouldn’t be alone. They would check up on me, make sure I was ok. She’d take me shopping for clothes and shit, pay for all if it herself.  

“They didn’t — never had any kids of their own.  I-I-I guess you could say that he adopted me, too.  Like your guy, Jack.”

“Sounds like we both got out of some bad shit and ended up finding something better for ourselves…”

“Yeah.”  Rick got up on one elbow, facing Harley.  “Must be a Rick thing, huh?” He reached out and touched Harley’s face, stroking his cheek.

Harley took his hand, kissed it.  “Must be…”

 

_tbc_


	8. Chapter 8

“Wh-What the fuck is _this?”_

“I’m leaving you, Rick. I’m taking Beth and we’re moving in with my parents.”

There were suitcases stacked by the front door. Garbage bags filled with Beth’s favorite stuffed animals — which was basically all of them — were sitting on the couch.

“Christ, Diane. What brought this on? And where’s Beth now?”

“You think you can just take off with some _floozy,_ Rick? I saw the two glasses on the coffee table. You sat here with her in our house, _my_ house, and drank and did who knows what…”

The thought of Harley being ‘some floozy’ made him laugh outright, in spite of himself, in spite of the sudden changes his life was now currently facing.

“Look, Diane. I-I-I wasn’t with another woman, all right? I-I-I would never do that to you. I told you: I had to go help out a friend. From th-the army. He just showed up out if the blue, looking to — for help.  With his business.  I’m gonna go into business with him, help him get it off the ground.”  The lies rolled smoothly off of his tongue.

“And what about us?  You were just going to leave us?  Beth and I?”

“Christ, woman, look at _you!_   You’ve already got your shit packed, f-f-fuckin’ —-“.  His voice had grown to a near-shout as his quick temper flared up.  He caught himself, tried to check his anger and his language.  He looked over into the den. “Wh-Where’s Bethy?”

“Mom and Dad have her.  I didn’t want her around for this, to hear us.”

They still hadn’t left the front entryway.  Rick ran a shaking hand through his hair.  Tried to focus.  He’d come back, intending to tell Diane that he wanted a divorce and that he was moving out, immediately. And now that the tables were turned on him, he found himself wanting to fight to keep his family together.  As if to keep Diane from one-upping him.  This was stupid. 

 _Focus_ , _man_...

“Look, Diane, our marriage is done.  We both know that.  B-B-But you don’t have to — don’t move out.  This is Bethy’s home.  I’ll move out.  You two stay here.  Th-that’s what I came to tell you, anyway.  We can get a divorce, nice and-and-and easy.  You can have custody, so long as I get to visit…  I’ll take care of Beth, make sure she has insurance…” 

They stood in the entryway of their home and stared silently at each other.

Just like that, their marriage was over.

*************************************

“Where do want to put this, Rick?”  Harley was standing in the back of his shop, holding a milk crate, heavy with parts and pieces of equipment.

“Over there, I guess…”  Rick turned around in the cramped space.  They were rapidly running out of room.  “I-I-I just… I don’t see how this is going to work, Harley.  Th-Th-There’s just not enough room…. We’re gonna be f-f-fuckin’ on top of each other…”

Rick spied a door with pieces of lumber stacked against it.  “What’s behind that?”

“That goes to some sort of cellar.  I think it was a storm shelter or fallout shelter that her dad built back in the ‘60s.  I haven’t been down there in awhile.  Not since we were married.”

“Well, fuck, man.  Let’s check it out…”  Rick climbed over and around crap to get to the door, then started moving the lumber away, clearing out enough space around it so he could open it.

A steep flight of rickety looking wooden stairs led down into the darkness.  Rick switched on a cobweb-covered light switch at the top of the stairs and a dimly-watted bulb flickered on.  Without hesitation he started down the stairs.  Harley heard the sounds of him stumbling against something heavy followed by a grunt of pain and a muttered curse.

“Hey, man.  You-you got a flashlight?”  His voice drifted up from the darkness.  “I can’t find any other light switches…”

Within a few minutes Harley came down the stairs with a couple of flashlights, and the two explored the cellar.  Thick cobwebs hung from the rafters across the ceiling and everything was coated in an inch-thick layer of dust.  Scurrying sounds told them that the cellar already had inhabitants.  The air had a cellar’s typical damp-musty smell, but there didn’t seem to be any immediate signs of moisture.

Boxes and bags of army-style ready to eat meals and food supplies were stacked against one wall.  Several army cots were folded up and leaned against them.  The cellar ran the entire length of the shop, but only the first third by the stairs had painted drywall and linoleum flooring.  The remaining two thirds was plain plywood walls and a cement floor.  A string of lightbulbs ran down the center of the ceiling for the entire length of the cellar.

“Shit!  This is perfect! I-I-I can just set up my workshop down here…”  Rick turned to Harley, excited.  “I-I-If that’s ok with you, man.”

“ 'Course it is, what the hell kind of question is that?”

Within a few months, Rick and Harley had outfitted the cellar so that it was better suited to Rick’s needs.  They replaced the electrical wiring and added to the existing plumbing, installed a couple of heavy duty aluminum sinks, two long work benches, shelving along one wall, and a chemistry lab hood and exhaust system for venting fumes outside.  They replaced some of the steps in the stairs and shored up the entire staircase.  Rick insisted on adding stronger support beams across the entire ceiling.

 _“So you and your bikes don’t fuckin’ fall down on top of me, man,_ ” he’d told Harley.

But he confined his workspace to the area which Harley’s father-in-law had already dried in and floored.  The remainder of the cellar was fine as it was for now.  He didn’t need the space just yet.  He was eager to get back to work on his projects.

Two of the cots were shot, the canvas eaten away by mice.  They left the other two down in the cellar, for Rick to sleep on if he needed to stay close by while an experiment was running.  And for Harley to join him, if he wanted to.  The wool blankets had to be burned, along with the two cots, and all the bags and boxes of MRE’s — half of which had been broken into by the mice.

“Th-they say that these never go bad, but… F-F-fuck, that shit was gross enough to eat when they were somewhat fresh.”

“You were in the army?”  Harley was somewhat surprised.  He’d joined up when he was 18, at Jack’s insistence.

_“It’ll help you become a man, son. If you don’t want to go to college, then do this instead. Hilly and I and the shop will still be here for you, when you get out.”_

And so he’d joined up for four years.  It was tough, having to deal with the regimented lifestyle, always having to follow orders.  He spent his time there learning all he could about mechanics, engines, welding, electrical, even some plumbing and carpentry. Learned how to repair and build just about anything.  His CO had wanted him to sign on for another four years, make the Army his career.  But after four years, he’d had enough.

Finally, he finished, with “a trade” as they called it, and some maturity, some wisdom.  More level-headed than he was before, less likely to fly off the handle over the little shit, the way his dad had always been.  He’d rejoined Jack at the shop and they built up the business together.  Then he met Diane…

“Y-Y-Yeah.  My college advisor sort of pushed me into it, as a way to get my graduate degree in engineering. Make the army pay for it, he said.  So I put in my four years, got a Ph.D, then did the ol’ GTFO, as they say.  OTS fucking sucked.  Crawling through muddy ditches, underneath barbed wire fences…” 

“Hey, at least you were an officer.  I was never anything more than a fucking grunt.  Sergeant Fucking Sanchez, at your service, sir.”

 _“Captain_ Sanchez, to you.”  Rick laughed.

“I guess neither of us got very far with our military careers.  But it paid off, in the long run.  For me, at least.  I know it made Jack happy, that I went.  I think I was gettin’ to be a handful for the old man…”

“My career was better for it, getting my doctorate opened up a lot of doors…”

They sat quietly in the firelight for several minutes.

They were sitting in a couple of old lawn chairs, watching the bonfire and drinking long neck beers out of an ice chest which sat on the ground between them. They’d tossed a ton of shit from the shop and the cellar out onto the pile, then waited until sundown to douse it with kerosene and light it up.

The flames climbed into the night sky as they passed a joint back and forth, drank beer, and talked.

“Ever notice how similar our lives have been?” Harley asked, after taking a deep drag on the joint before passing it back to Rick.

“What, just because we’ve both been in the Army?”  Rick scoffed.

“Nah, man, not just that. I mean...we both had fucked up childhoods. Our dads were assholes…We both ran away from home -- I went to the streets, you went to school, to college.” He paused, taking a long drag. “We sort of had foster parents who basically volunteered, took over raising us…”  He drifted off, staring into the fire.

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”  Rick replied flatly.

“Hell, even our dimensions are similar.”  Harley had ignored him and resumed talking.  “Mine’s 319-D and yours is D-319.”

“So, what’re you sayin’. That this was all written in the stars?”

“Might’ve been…”

“Ppppffftt.”  Rick took the joint back from Harley, took a big hit off it.  “I don’t believe in coincidences.”  He said it while trying to keep the smoke in his lungs for as long as possible.

They sat there, quietly watching the fire, they’re long legs stretched out in front them, and their beer bottles resting in their crotches.

“My wife...my Diane, she died.” Harley’s voice was emotionless.

“Yeah, I kind of figured…”. Rick had been curious, but was uncomfortable asking.

“She died in an accident with this asswipe.  Went for a ride with him on his — this fucked up Yamaha crotch rocket that he’d built from parts that he got out at scrap yards.  Couldn’t afford to buy a real bike, so he pieced together a bunch of shit…He was so fucking full of himself, ridin’ around on that piece of junk, like he was some kind of goddamn road warrior hero…

“The night she died, we’d been at a bar, about twenty miles away from here, two towns over.  She was gettin’ drunk, being a pain in the ass, flirtin’ with this fucker in front of me just to piss me off.  Finally, I’d had enough of her shit, told her if she wanted to go with him, be my fuckin’ guest.  Told her they weren’t gonna make it five miles down the road on that tricycle before it broke down or they had a blowout, then she’d be sorry.”

“How far’d they get?”  Rick already knew the gist of the ending.

“About seven. Front wheel came off, bad welding job, front fork snapped completely away from the frame.  Threw him off the bike, went ass over head across the handlebars, landed on the pavement, broke his neck.  Died instantly.  She got caught under the body of the bike, dragged about fifty feet.  Tore the skin off one of her legs, right down to muscle and bone, just like peeling an apple.  They were picking pieces of her flesh up off the road when I came up on the scene — had no idea what had happened, that it was her.  Them.  Until I saw the bike…

“She had a miscarriage in the ambulance on the way to the hospital — I didn’t even know she was pregnant.  Friend of hers told me later, at the funeral, that she was planning to surprise me. B-B-But then a buddy of mine, that chick’s boyfriend, told me that she wasn’t sure who the father was, which one of us.  Me or that asswipe.  That’s why she hadn’t told me about it, yet.  She’d been shittin’ bricks for weeks, not knowin’ what to do.”

“How far along was she?”

Harley took a moment, drained his beer before chunking the bottle into the fire.

“ ‘Bout four months.  It was a little girl.”  Harley reached for the joint, took a long hit.  “She died on the operating table, while they were amputating her leg.”

“Jeez, man. I’m sorry.”

Harley pulled another beer out of the ice chest, cracked the cap off and flipped it into the fire.

“Ain’t nuthin’ for _you_ to be sorry about.  _You_ didn’t kill her…”

“When was this?”

“Well, let’s see...How old is your Beth? Three?”

“She just turned three last month.”

“Yeah...So, our Beths would have been the same age.  You do the math.  You’re the engineer…”

The bonfire shifted, sending a huge wave of sparks and embers up into the night sky, swirling up into the air on the currents of the heat and the smoke.  Like a flock of birds, released from a cage.

After some minutes, Rick cleared his throat, spoke again.

“I missed her birthday.  He took them to Disney World.”  Rick hadn’t been “allowed” to see Beth on her birthday.  Diane’s boyfriend had taken them out of town for the entire week, to Florida.

“Yeah, I remember that, that she pulled that on you, with him.  What’s his name? Greg?”  The name had significance for Harley as well.  It was the name of his Diane’s lover.  The one who drove the crotch rocket and killed them both, along with Harley’s hopes for a family and a future...

“Yeah. F-F-Fuckin’ Gregory the Great. St. Fuckin’ Gregory…”  Rick’s voice was bitter with anger and disappointment.

Turned out, Diane had been seeing Greg behind his back for three years.  Fucking bitch.  Her parents had met him long before, thought he hung the moon.  Took care of Beth on all those long weekends that she was supposedly visiting them, but instead had been going off with that fuckwad.  She’d been planning to leave Rick.  She was just working up the courage to do it.  Coming home to an empty house and finding the two used whiskey glasses on the coffee table was all the impetus she needed.

Now, after hearing Harley’s story about his Diane, Rick wondered if his Diane new who Beth’s real father was… But, no, Rick reconsidered.  Just spend five minutes with that child and anyone could tell. She was all him. All Rick. In temperament, intelligence… She even had his piercing blue eyes.  Only in her they were still innocent and trusting, full of love and adoration when she looked up at him.

He wondered how long that love and adoration would last.

Last week Diane married Greg, less than a week after _their_ divorce was final, and he immediately moved into their house.  _Her_ house, he reminded himself.  Rick had made good on his promise to give her the house.  It just sucked ass that she’d brought another man in so soon after he’d left.

And just like that, Beth had a new daddy.

It had hurt.  He didn’t want to admit it.  He had been trying his best to keep the marriage going, wondering why she was drifting away from him, emotionally.  Turns out she’d fucking drifted off completely, unmoored herself from their little harbor and headed straight out to sea. Without a backwards look.

He’d been so concerned about Beth’s welfare and well-being.  Was willing to keep working at that dull, boring firm, just so she’d have health benefits and so he could save for her college.  Then Greg stepped in and took over, took all his hopes for any remaining semblance of a family away from him...

Harley sat in the firelight and silently watched him out of the corner of his eye.  It was going to take Rick awhile to get over it.  Losing his family out of the blue like this.  Harley could relate.  He was patient.

He got up from the lawn chair, started walking towards the house.

“Wh-Where’re you off to?”

“Gotta take a leak.”

“Well, just go, off behind the shop, like I just did…”

“Nah, man. I’m gonna get something.  Show you something.”

He returned a few minutes later with an acoustic guitar, holding it by its neck.  He sat down, took a healthy swig of beer, then slipped the strap over his head and sat back in the chair.  He strummed experimentally a few times, tuning the guitar.  Then started playing.

He played a classical guitar song, something that sounded Spanish.  The melody was somewhat melancholic, fitting Rick’s mood.  Not too intricate or fast-paced.  Just a gentle song.  The notes seemed to hang over them before drifting up into the night sky to float away with the smoke and embers from the bonfire.

The song ended and the two sat in silence, the crackling of the flames and the calling of the frogs and night insects were the only sounds around them.

Rick cleared his throat, his voice hoarse with emotion.  “Th-Th-That was beautiful, Papi. Play something else…”

He slid down in the lawn chair, his long legs sprawled out in front him.  He leaned his head back, resting it against the back of the chair, and drank beer and listened while Harley played.  He stared sightlessly at the fire as tears streamed unchecked down his cheeks.


	9. Chapter 9

“You gotta put your middle finger on the fifth fret for that chord…”

Harley was teaching Rick how to play the guitar.  He was picking it up surprisingly fast, but with equally little patience.  Whenever Rick would get impatient and frustrated with himself, or Harley, and started swearing and complaining, Harley just left the room.  Left him to it. He either went down to the shop to work or into the kitchen to cook a meal. Anything to get away from Rick’s temper.

Rick’s playing quickly improved over the next several months.  He couldn’t read music, didn’t have the patience to learn, but he could play by sound, once Harley taught him chords and the basic technique.  It was amazing what Rick could play just by hearing a song only a handful of times. Most of the songs he already knew from the rock stations he listened to all in his youth and up into when he was in the army.  Before he met Beth and she took over the radio and filled the house with cheesy pop and dance music, and whatever the latest “boy band” she was into.  Nowadays the music he liked was called album rock, and, more frequently,  _classic_ rock, making him feel slightly old...

When he wasn’t working down in his lab he was listening to songs and playing along — while sitting on the couch or on the porch outside.  But during the day, more often than not he would park himself in a lawn chair down in the shop and drink beer or whiskey and play while Harley worked on customers’ bikes.  Sometimes Harley would correct his fingering, give him pointers. Almost always he sang along, so that Rick could learn how to accompany. Then, Rick began singing as well, was able to master playing and singing along without missing a beat or screwing up either one.  Soon, he was almost as proficient as Harley.

Rick intuitively had an excellent sense of rhythm and timing, and how to change the chord progression to match the beat, the mood of the song, and harmonize along with the lead guitar.  Began playing more like a bassist.

That’s when they decided to go invest in some more equipment, started talking about forming a band.

 

********

“You take the lead, I’ll stick with playing bass.  I-I-I’m not near as good as you, man, to play lead.  My f-f-fingers aren’t as fast.”

“Your fingers are good where it counts,” Harley quietly murmured absentmindedly as they stood in the guitar shop.  In actuality, Rick wasn’t giving himself nearly enough credit.  Playing a bass was almost _all_ about fast finger work, and very little actual strumming.

Harley was looking up at a selection of electric guitars hanging on the wall.  There was a deep blue Fender Stratocaster that caught his eye. The price was right, and included an amplifier.  There was also a black and white Gibson SG which he liked as well.

He couldn’t make up his mind.  They each would have different sounds.  It wasn’t just a matter of deciding on something as simple as the aesthetics of the body shape or color.

He read the descriptions of the two guitars and the types of tones they produced, the types of music for which they were better suited.  Thinking about the kind of music he preferred, planned to play. He was deep in thought.

“Man, look!”  Rick came up, holding a six-string ‘crested wave’ design Rickenbacker with a black body, and a six-string royal blue Fender Mustang Bass with a white pickguard.  “I-I-I can’t decide...”

It was the most upbeat Rick had been since his divorce.  Ever since he picked up Harley’s acoustic guitar and started playing, his mood had gradually begun to lift.  Now here, he was almost like a kid in a toy store, bouncing off the walls with excitement.

In the end, they bought all four guitars, plus an acoustic for Rick, a variety of picks, half a dozen cables, a stand for each guitar, an electric tuner, an effects pedal and box, and two bottlenecks.  Each electric guitar came with it’s own Peavey G10 amp, included in the price, which were fine for practicing at home and rehearsals, but they needed something more powerful for live performances.

Harley bargained with the manager, who agreed to add two Marshall full stacks for half their regular price.  It was the least the guy could do, since in a single day the money he’d make from this sale meant he could close the shop for the next two weeks and take a much-needed vacation.  The shop assistant helped them hump all the bags, boxes, and equipment out to the parking lot in the back, then looked around questioningly, because there wasn’t a vehicle.

“Thanks, man, we got this.  A friend’s coming to pick us up.”  Harley tipped him, as much for his help as to get him to leave.

He and Rick waited while the employee went back inside the windowless door.  As soon as the door closed Rick pulled out his portal gun.

“We goin’ to the cellar with all this, or to the house?”

“To the house.  I don’t think you’ve found the source of that moisture, yet.”

“There’s no _moisture_ down there…” Rick said defensively over the noise of the portal, then grunted as they quickly started shoving cases and boxes through.

“...I-I-It’s fucking underground,” he finished, as they stepped through into the den.  He was carrying the bag with the cables and electric tuner.  “Of course it’s gonna smell damp.  It’s not like you’re gonna get electrocuted.”

“Yeah, well we just spent almost $15,000 on electronics and shit.  I don’t want it to fucking get ruined. We can keep everything here in the den and that other bedroom until we figure out what’s wrong down there.”  Harley set a bag down on the coffee table. “Come on. I’m hungry and it’s your night to fix dinner. You want some help?”

“Y-Y-You don’t want any help moving everything in-in-into the next room?”

“I got this.  Go fix us something to eat.  I’m fucking starving. Spending fifteen grand sort of stimulated my appetite, in more ways than one...”

They leaned into each other’s space and kissed, long and deep, then separated with some reluctance, going off to opposite sides of the house.

 

******* 

“Blues…”

“Rock….That’s what...that brings the crowds.”  Harley passed the joint back over to Rick, sitting on the other side of the couch.  “People don’t want to...to sit around all night, listening to just the blues. Shit gets old, man.”

“Nah.  No, it don’t.  Not if you got a good jam goin’.  Be-“ Rick interrupted himself to take a long hit off the joint, held his breath a moment, handed the joint back. “ —‘Sides, you can show off your fancy fretwork with the blues.  I’ll just back you up.”

“Fuck.  Ain’t nuthin’...nuthin’ fancy about it.  Just playin’. I’m jus’...playin’...” Harley closed his eyes and allowed his head to drop back onto the couch.

Harley was drunk.  Fucked up, in fact.  They’d been playing, drinking, and smoking all day.  Screwing in between.  Now it was late in the night.

Rick preferred the sound and style of his Fender Mustang Bass over the Rickenbacker.  Although The Rick, as he liked to call it (it was too obvious a choice of a nickname for him to ignore) made a good complementary harmony with Harley’s Gibson.  Harley, turns out, preferred the Stratocaster. The two Fender guitars melded together in sounds and style. When he and Rick played them together it was like...like how the two men were in bed, in life. 

Meant.  Meant to be. 

They really found their groove playing together on their acoustic guitars with a song by the Allman Brothers’ Band, called “Little Martha.”  It wasn’t played a lot on the radio, but Harley told Rick that it was well-known among guitar enthusiasts and fans of the group.  He played the song for Rick from an album.  Rick listened to it 2 or 3 times; then 2 or 3 times more while he played along with it.

The two sat down on the couch and played it together, and they nailed it the very first time.  Harley tapped the time with his boot, biting his lower lip in concentration.  Rick’s head was down, bobbing to the beat while his fingers plucked away at the strings.  When they finished they looked at each other and smiled.  Then they played it again.  It was the perfect song for the two of them.

Rick switched to the Rickenbacker and started playing the bass intro to “Sunshine of Your Love.”  Harley picked up his Gibson and joined in.  Rick sang the lyrics with Harley accompanying.  They looked at each other while they sang, knowing that they were singing to each other, the lyrics were about them…. They set the guitars aside and kissed, then quickly moved their activity to the bedroom, haphazardly stripping off their clothes along the way.  Later, they came back out into the den and played that one several times through without singing, while Harley practiced his fingering, until he mastered making the Gibson moan with that classic “woman’s sound.”  Just like Eric Clapton. 

When they sang, their voices paired together perfectly, sounding exactly the same, but at a slightly different pitch.  Perhaps, no, obviously, it was because they were both Ricks.  Rick’s voice was better suited to the songs which called for his low tenor voice, while Harley took the ones which needed his slightly deeper, drawling baritone. They knew that with a few more Ricks in the band, singing along as well as playing, they’d sound exactly like rock bands which used multi-part vocal harmonies, like the Eagles or — fuck, even The Beatles…  Only they’d be able to perform the songs perfectly, live, no multi-track studio recordings of the same person singing a verse twice through at the same pitch, or in a different octave.

Shit, if they could round up the right Ricks to join them, they’d be fucking _outstanding_.

Harley drank whiskey all day while they played, reveling in the sounds they made together.  Now his fingers were sore from the strings, his voice hoarse from smoking, singing, laughing.  His head was going to ache in the morning, but right now he didn’t care. It wasn’t exactly spinning, but his mind had definitely slipped down into low gear, his consciousness barely coasting along at a crawl.  He sat sprawled back on the couch with his eyes closed and listened to the music in his head, their playing and singing, a small smile on his face.

Rick looked over at him, dozing with that dopey look.  Grinning, he reached over and took the smoldering joint from between Harley’s fingertips before he dropped it or got burned.  He took another hit then carefully put it out.

“Come on, man.  Get up. Let’s go to bed.”  Rick stood up and went over to Harley.  He reached down and held his palm against Harley’s face, gently stroking his stubbled skin with his thumb.  Then he nudged him with his shoe. 

“Hmmph.”  Harley opened his eyes to barely a squint and looked up at Rick.  “Fuckin’ leave me alone, man. I’m sleepin’.”

“Get yer fuckin’ ass up, Papi.  I can’t fuckin’ carry you…” 

Reluctantly, Harley sat up, groaning, then allowed himself to be pulled into a standing position.  Rick steered him into the bedroom where he collapsed on the bed, making the springs squeak and groan in complaint.  Rick pulled off his boots, stripped off his jeans, grunting and swearing quietly with the solo effort, then covered him with the blanket before going into the bathroom to take a leak and get undressed.  When he came back into the bedroom Harley had managed to take off the remainder of his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor beside the bed, and was curled up on his side under the covers. Rick slid into bed next to him, spooning up behind him, pulling the man into his arms. 

“Today was...a good day, whadn’t, Daddy?”  Harley covered Rick’s hand with his own, lacing their fingers together.

“Yeah, Papi.  We make good music together.” 

“ ‘S’what I thought, too...” 

Harley was silent after that, and the room soon filled with the sound of his heavy breathing after he fell asleep.  Rick held him in his arms and stroked his thumb back and forth across Harley’s chest, his mind ticking over all the things that had happened to him since they’d been together, and wondering what else the future had in store for them.

 

_tbc_


	10. Chapter 10

Harley woke up on his back with Rick curled around and over him, his head resting on Harley’s chest, using him like he was a human body pillow.  The heavy weight of Rick’s warm, naked body felt good, comforting, and Harley softly stroked his hands over the hard planes of Rick’s muscles and bones.

Rick had bulked up since he moved in with Harley.  Well, bulk may be too strong a word — more like _toned_ up.  Basically, Rick had lost his “marriage and baby fat,” as Harley referred to it, with all the work they’d been doing down in the cellar and in the shop.

Countless trips up and down the stairs, carrying trash, tools, equipment, and supplies, had toned and muscled up his legs and ass.  His upper body got workouts from hours of hammering, sawing, taking turns holding heavy pieces of equipment or materials while the other one fitted it or attached it to the wall or something else.  Gradually Rick lost his flab, built up his muscle, and became lean and toned. And tanned. Half of the work was prep work that was easier to do outside, and both men typically shed their shirts and just sweated bare chested in the heat and sun all day.

Harley was attracted to him when they first met, but now he thought Rick was one fine looking man indeed.  And they both loved to fuck. It was a good thing they lived in a secluded farmhouse out in the country. Neither one was shy about holding it in when they came.  Cursing and shouting each other’s name, they roared like two bulls in heat. Harley had even had to hammer up a piece of ¾” plywood behind the bed, before they knocked holes in the drywall from the wrought iron headboard.

He wouldn’t say that they had rough sex.  Just fucking intense... _fucking._

They’d had their share of disagreements.  Initially it was difficult for Rick to yield to Harley the control of the cellar project and the majority of the decision-making about it.  His ego wouldn’t allow it and they’d butt heads quite a bit in the beginning, with one or both of them storming away in a huff to cool off. They had several heated arguments, one that nearly came to blows — but instead Harley swore and turned away and angrily slung his hammer across the cellar.  The claw end embedded itself into the drywall, like a tomahawk impaling itself in the side of a tree. He stormed out of the cellar, up the stairs and outside, leaving Rick standing there, slack-jawed in shock.

Eventually, Rick finally had to concede that Harley really did know what the fuck he was talking about.

In this matter, at least.

After that, things had gone along relatively smoothly between them.

Even playing the bass had contributed to Rick’s physical transformation.  The heavier guitar with its longer neck and thicker strings, while in some ways easier to learn to play for a beginner like Rick, was more physically demanding than the electric guitar.  Fortunately his tall stature, with his long arms and fingers, helped out. He developed a stronger grip and more dexterity in his hands and wrists. Harley had noticed the change in Rick’s grip strength, and on more than one occasion had had to tell him to ease up on his cock when he was jerking Harley off.

Lying beneath him now, Harley continued to slowly stroke Rick’s back, circling down and across his round buttocks, fingers ghosting between the muscular cheeks.  He wanted to drive himself up into that tight ass. Rick stirred and Harley could feel his dick growing hot and hard against his side. His own thick cock was pulsing, but Rick’s thigh was splayed across his crotch, effectively squashing him.  In fact, it was getting downright uncomfortable. And he needed to take a piss.

Rick lifted his head and took Harley’s nipple in his mouth and tongued and sucked it, making Harley rumble with pleasure and run his hand through Rick’s hair.  Then Rick reached his hand up to caress Harley’s face before planting his hand beside Harley on the mattress to push himself up off of his chest. He smiled down at Harley, kissed him on the lips, then rolled off to the side, groaning.

“He lives…”. Harley said sarcastically.  He shifted his hips to spread his legs, and secretly sighed with relief now that the pressure and weight from Rick’s leg was lifted off his dick.

“Me?  What are you talking about?  I-I-I practically had to carry your ass to bed last night, you were so fucking drunk…”  Rick flopped his forearm across his eyes and forehead while simultaneously blindly reaching over to Harley with his other hand, to caress his stomach.

Harley got up on one elbow, facing Rick.  He reached over and took Rick’s half-erect cock and began stroking it, slow and firm.

“Well, I’m awake now.  More awake than you, it looks like.”

Rick lifted his arm from his eyes and peered down.  “He just needs a little more encouragement, Papi. Keep on doin’ what you’re doin’, he’ll come around…”. He covered up his eyes again and lifted his hips slightly, canting upwards into Harley’s touch, sighing a deep hum of contentment.  Harley stroked him for a few more times then abruptly stopped.

“Christ, at this rate…”  Harley rolled away from Rick and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands through his longish hair, wild with a severe case of bed head.  

“Why’d you fucking stop?”

“I’m gonna go take a leak first…”

“Always Mr. Spontaneity…”

“That’s me…”  Harley got up and went into the bathroom to piss.  

He was leaning over the sink, brushing his teeth, when Rick edged his way past him on the way to the toilet, caressing his firm ass as he went.  Then he smacked it lightly.

“I’d better see that ass back in bed when I come out.”

Harley spat out a mouthful of toothpaste.  “Bossy little bottom, aren’t you?”

“Wh-Who says I’m catching this time?”

“ ‘Cause this mornin’ I feel like pitching, that’s why.  I’m gonna fuck you hard, babe. And don’t forget to brush your teeth.  Your breath stinks.”

“Fuck.  Mr. Romantic _and_ Mr. Spontaneity …”

“That’s me…”

As he squirted tooth paste out on his toothbrush, Rick watched him walk back out into the bedroom, admiring the way the muscles in his back, legs, and ass moved.  He hurriedly finished up brushing his teeth, his dick growing hard in anticipation.

Harley was lying with his back against the wrought iron headboard and one arm behind his head.  He watched Rick with a wolfish grin while slowly stroking his cock. It had grown huge and thick, stretching up against his belly.

“Come and ride this beast.”

Rick grinned and straddled Harley.  He reached down and held their two cocks in his hand and began to stroke them together with slow, firm movements.  They both hummed with the feeling of their two hot cocks rubbing together.

Harley reached up and caressed Rick’s face, running his hand down the bearded stubble and stroking his thumb across his lips. Then he leaned forward and held Rick’s face in both of his hands and kissed him.  Their kiss started slowly. For all Harley’s boasting, he was perfectly happy for this to be a slow “morning drive,” if that’s how Rick wanted it.

He ran the tip of his tongue lightly across Rick’s lips, then softly breathed into his mouth.  Rick opened his mouth with a sigh as Harley plunged his tongue deep inside and worked his mouth with slow, sensual kisses that had Rick moaning.  Rick pulled his lips away and pressed his forehead against Harley’s.

“Fuck...I want you inside me, Papi…”  Rick breathed.

Harley smirked up at him, then reached for the lube he’d already pulled out of the bedside table.  He flipped the cap open and squirted a generous dollop on his fingertips. He reached between Rick’s cheeks and began to tease his puckered entrance with his fingers, circling, massaging.  Rick leaned forward and spread his thighs wider, balancing himself on his hands, and groaned into Harley’s mouth. He rocked his hips against Harley so that their cocks rubbed against each other, then pushed his ass against Harley’s fingertips on the backwards motion.  Harley gradually worked him open until Rick was panting.

“I’m ready, I’m ready…”  Rick sat up and lined himself up with Harley’s cock, the hot head pressing against his hole.

Harley planted is feet on the bed and thrust his hips upwards and into Rick, eliciting a deep groan from both men.  He gently thrust himself in and out few times, until Rick could take Harley’s long, thick cock, then he began moving more purposefully. He gripped Rick’s hips and pulled him down with each upwards thrust, harder, faster.  Rick rode along with it, stripping his cock in time with each thrust. Harley’s cock brushed across Rick’s prostate a few times and he groaned.

“I’m not gonna last long, if you keep that up, Papi.”  Rick leaned down and kissed him, running his tongue into Harley’s mouth.

“I’m counting on it…”

Harley angled his hips, he thrust upwards, hard, hitting Rick’s prostate and causing him to cry out, his cock spewing thick ropes onto Harley’s chest.  Rick slumped forward, kissing him.

“Christ...you fucker...wasn’t exactly expecting that…”

“You loved it…”

Harley rolled them both over and onto Rick’s back.  He repositioned himself between Rick’s bent legs, then slid back inside his wet hole.  He sat there for a moment, bottomed out, looking at Rick’s closed eyes and watching him take deep breaths, still  mind-fucked and loose-limbed from cumming. Grinning, he leaned forward and kissed him, keeping his weight on his elbows.

The slow, lingering kiss deepened as he began rocking into Rick’s tight, wet heat.  Rick moaned into his mouth, and felt his cock making its usual quick comeback. He reached between them and began stroking himself, more slowly this time, using his cum to help slick up his hand.

Harley sat back on his heels, pulling Rick almost into his lap.  He gripped the man’s hips, pulling him in with each thrust. He sat up slightly and shifted his hips, began bumping across Rick’s prostate almost every time.  Rick cried out and his cock jumped in his hand as he arched up slightly, cursing and gasping. He grabbed the headboard for stability. Harley increased his pace and began stroking across Rick’s prostate repeatedly, snapping his hips in a dedicated rhythm.  He could feel his balls tightening up as he grew closer to his own finish.

“Not...gonna be able to...to keep this up much longer, Daddy…”  Harley’s breathing was becoming ragged and he was beginning to lose his rhythm.

“Do it, Papi, do it.  Cum inside me, I wanna feel your huge cock blow its load…”  Rick tightened around Harley.

“Jesus... _Fuck!”_  Harley slammed into Rick one last time and pulsed inside him, holding their bodies together as he shook with release.

“God... _God_ you feel so good…”. Rick stripped himself a few more times before cumming again, painting his chest with white stripes.

Harley stretched himself down until he was lying on top of Rick, still breathing heavily.  Rick spread his hands across his sweaty back.

“I think you broke yourself, man.”

“Not broken…”  Harley mumbled into his ear.  Then he turned his head and gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek before rolling off.  “But I’m goin’ back to sleep. I’m fuckin’ hungover…”

“Told you….”

He grunted in reply and threw his forearm across his eyes, spreading his legs slightly with a deep sigh.  He felt the bed shift as Rick got up. He heard water in the bathroom, then a warm, wet washcloth was gently smoothed down his chest and abdomen as Rick wiped off the sticky cum.  The covers were pulled up to his chest.

“Thanks…” he mumbled, clutching the covers more closely around him and rolling over.

“Sleep tight, Papi…”  Rick gently threaded his fingers through Harley’s hair then quietly dressed and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

_tbc_


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’ve had this chapter sitting on the back burner for awhile. Got hung up with trying to finish the one that comes before it. Got several more written, too, to follow this... Not sure how long this story will be, overall. Two upcoming chapters are based on a suggestion from a reader.
> 
> As always, your kudos are wonderful and your feedback and comments are greatly appreciated!

They started portalling around the multiverse, just exploring together.  Looking for other Ricks who might be interested in joining up with them in their band.  Found different pubs and bars to go hang out at. Ones that were used to other Ricks, places where the owners and patrons weren’t against other Ricks hanging out as a couple.  These weren’t gay bars. Just ones that were used to having multiple Ricks as patrons, and also were more open-minded than the ones in Harley’s dimension. The ones where they’d had to introduce Rick as Harley’s cousin, in order to try to explain their obvious physical similarities.

_ “ _ **_Kissin’_ ** _ cousins, looks more like it…” _  Was what they’d overheard one man remark.  And that’s when they stopped going to  _ that _ particular bar.

Sometimes Rick or Harley would miss the company of a woman, pick one up.  Go back to her place for a few hours, then show up back at the old farmhouse, later, alone.  Neither was ever gone overnight. They both just needed some good pussy every now and then. A few times they’d have a threesome together, or, more rarely, a foursome.

Occasionally, seldom, in fact, one of them would go off with another Rick.  But it was usually very unsatisfactory, and almost always felt like they were cheating on the other.  So, those encounters were few and far between and more likely due to the effects of drugs and alcohol, with a hefty, but fleeting, dose of misguided lust.

They always said something beforehand, that way neither one was left behind, looking or waiting for the other in vain and getting pissed off.  Harley would usually tell Rick that he was going to play with the other team. Rick, probably harkening back to his days in college, would tell Harley that he wanted be with a coed that night.  Or, if either one was already pretty drunk and fucked up, they’d bluntly tell the other that they needed to get some pussy.

Neither was upset or offended.  The only rule was: don’t bring anyone back with you.

On this issue they’d had to learn to come to an agreement the hard way, early on...

 

******

 

Harley was wandering through a loud, crowded nightclub on Geldork 5.  Electronic dance music boomed loudly all around, the bass thrumming in his ears.  The overall atmosphere was dark, briefly illuminated by neon lights flashing all around and the bright reflections of the spotlights coming off all the large, glittering disco balls which hung overhead.

It was like the club owners had seen “Saturday Night Fever” back on an Earth in some dimension somewhere, and had fallen in love with the whole “disco fever” movement.  He wouldn’t be surprised if John Travolta suddenly leaped out on the central dance floor and started breaking into his signature moves. Aliens of all kinds were milling around, drinking, flirting, dancing.  He’d come across quite a few fucking in dark corners.

Not his kind of place, this.  He preferred small, quiet pubs, where the loudest sounds were the crack of billiard balls knocking against each other and the quiet laughter from the handful of regular patrons.

But Rick was in a phase.  Had  _ been _ in a phase for the past few weeks.  He’d finally begun to rebound from his divorce and the slow recovery from the upset of losing his family.  Then, Diane had found out about the two of them. Him and Harley. They didn’t know how she found out. Harley had only been to that dimension that one time, when he and Rick first met.  Rick had never mentioned him to her.

It didn’t matter.  She’d been merciless in her accusations, her treatment of Rick.  Went straight to her divorce lawyer with new demands. The judge who was assigned to the initial hearing granted her wish to end all his visitations with Beth, immediately, until things were sorted out.  Now Rick couldn’t see her at all; even supervised visits were on hold.

So, currently Rick was on a galaxy-wide bender, like a comet intent on burning itself out in a blaze of glory, with Harley trailing in his wake, babysitting.  Keeping him out of trouble as best as he could.

Rick’s latest thing was a drug called K-lax.  Harley had snorted quite a bit himself, even smoked it.  But the high, while intense, was so fleeting, that he’d gotten tired of chasing it.  He preferred liquor, beer, and good ol’ pot. It just better-suited his personality, temperament.

Rick had discovered that the Geldork System had mines on most of its planets with huge supplies of premium grade K-lax crystals, and had insisted that they go check out the clubs there.  Now here Harley was, searching through this nightmare of a meat market, looking for Rick.

After another hour he gave up.  Rick had his own portal gun with him, he could get himself home.  Harley was irritated, tired, and ready to call it a night. He’d never left Rick behind before, but there was a first time for everything.  Rick was a big boy, he’d find his way back. Harley went outside and around the corner of the building, opened a portal back to the house, and stepped through.

He stepped through the portal and into the den and immediately saw Rick’s portal gun on the coffee table.   _ Well, for Christ’s sake… _ .  Then he heard the unmistakable sounds of fucking coming from his bedroom —  _ their  _ bedroom, he reminded himself.

_ The bastard had brought someone back, back here to fuck... _

With three quick strides of his long legs he was across the den, his heavy boots scraping and pounding on the hardwood floor, then he burst into the bedroom without hesitating or knocking.  The door slammed against the wall, almost knocking him in the face on its rebound. He blocked it with his forearm and angrily shoved it out of his way as he barreled into the room. 

A triple-breasted, yellow-skinned alien was currently riding Rick at full throttle, her huge tits bouncing away.  She turned around at the sound of the door banging open, saw Harley and squealed in surprise, leaping up off of Rick in mid-bounce and onto the bed, scrambling to cover herself.  It would have been funny if Harley wasn’t so pissed off.

“What the actual fuck?!”  Rick hoisted himself up on his elbows, looking around in the semi-dark, his sex- and drug-addled brain trying to register where his lay had gone.

“Ricky, who is this, Ricky?”  The woman was now in a corner of the bedroom, trying to dress herself as quickly as possible.

“I’m the jealous boyfriend.  You got all your shit?” He loomed over her, his face dark with fury.

She cowered in front of him, nodding, holding her skimpy top across her naked breasts in a futile attempt to cover them.

“Good.  See ya.”  Harley opened a portal and unceremoniously pushed her through, back to the nightclub, her shrieks of outrage cut off by the closing portal.

“What the fuck’s gotten into you, man?”  Rick was on his feet, walking towards Harley.

Without warning, Harley hauled off and punched him, just below his left eye.

“Aaarrggh!  Jesus fucking  _ Christ!” _  Rick’s head snapped back with the blow, then he straightened up and barged towards Harley, his head down, roaring like a bull in full fury.  They slammed into the wall together, Harley saw stars when his head struck the wall.

They grappled with each other.  Since Rick was naked, Harley had nothing to get a purchase on, so he put one booted foot behind Rick’s legs and tripped him to the floor, landing on top of him with a grunt and quickly pinning Rick’s arms above his head.  The telltale cerulean blue tinge of the K-lax was rapidly fading from Rick’s eyes.

“What the  _ fuck _ is your problem, asshole?”  Rick glared up at him from his undignified position on the floor.

“You total  _ fuckwad! _  How dare you bring someone back here?!”

“I just wanted some tits and ass for a change.  Is there a problem with that? I-I-I was gonna send her back when we were done…”  As the K-lax wore off, so did Rick’s anger, and he relaxed. Harley released his hands but stayed where he was.

“You wanna get yourself some pussy, you-you-you want some fresh  _ dick,  _ **_Ricky_ ** _ , _ that’s fine, but don’t you  _ ever _ bring anyone back here again!  You understand?  Show some goddamn respect, for fuck’s sake.”

Rick was silent, staring up at his lover, his best friend.  Now that the K-lax had worn off, he realized what a complete asshole he’d been, in allowing the drug to let him think with the wrong head.  He reached one hand up to caress Harley’s face.

“I’m sorry, man.  I-I-I wasn’t thinking.  I-I-I won’t do it again.  I promise.”

Harley stared down at him, then, sighing, he sat back on his heels and stood up.  He reached down to help Rick up off the floor.

“You got a mean right hook, man.”  Rick said, wincing as he touched his cheek.  He went into the bathroom and turned on the light to look in the mirror and inspect the damage.  “Fuck. I’m gonna have a black eye…”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to break that pretty nose of yours…”  Harley came up behind him and looked over his shoulder at their reflection together.  “I’ll go get you some ice for your eye.”

“Hey…”. Rick said to Harley’s retreating back, stopping him with that one word and the tone of his voice.

Harley turned around to look him.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to hurt you.  I won’t do it again.”

The two quickly closed the distance between them and were in each other’s arms, kissing.

Make up sex wasn’t always the best sex.  But it was definitely a close second.

 

_tbc_


End file.
